Passed SCJP This Morning

I just passed SCJP this morning with a score of 88%. Thanks to the organizers and contributors to this site for advice and helping motivate me. I bought my voucher last March, and thought I had plenty of time. I got side-tracked by work etc. and about last October started to panic that I might not be ready by the time my voucher would expire (this March). I started by using Simon Roberts et al's "Virtual Trainer" (which is a sort of computerised version) of the "Complete Certification guide" When I took the first tests, I had a bit of a fright, as it made me realise I didn't know Java nearly precisely enough for the exam. There were a few glitches in the computerised presentation of the tests, but it was still valuable. I then worked through "A Programmer's Guide to Java Certification" by Khalid Mughal and Rolf Rasmussen, which I would very highly recommend. As I was running short of time, for the first few chapters I just did the end-of-chapter tests and didn't read the text. It may be significant that these topics were the ones that I had some wrong answers in the exam. the book is very reliable - I like a book that you can trust to be right. I'd also recommend strongly the "Mike Meyers Certification Passport: Java 2" by Phil Hanna, Cathy Sierra and Jane Griscti. It quickly focuses on the essentials you need to know for the exam, and is reliable. I'd done a bit of reading through "Core Java" by Horstmann. That book is good, and has lots of examples. I'm afraid I haven't contributed to JavaRanch before, but I hope to make a contribution in the future, and will soon decide which exam to go for next. I'm certainly sold on the certification idea. I thought I knew C++ reasonably well, but this process has forced me (and all other SCJPs) to know Java a whole lot better, Regards, John